Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/93

 OnAP. ei. TUE EIGHT OP PROPERTY. 87 lence of liis gods towards his field and his house ; above all, lie had marked his right of property by proceeding round his field with his domestic worship. The path which the victims and prayers had followed was the inviolable limit of the domain. On this line, at certain points, the men placed large stones or trunks of trees, which they called Termini. We can form a good idea as to what these bounds were, and what ideas were connected with them, by the manner in which the piety of men established them. "This," says Seculus Flaccus, "was the manner in which our ancestors proceeded: They commenced by digging a small hole, and placing the Terminus upright near it; next they crowned the Terminus with garlands of grasses and flowers ; then they offered a sacrifice. The victim being immolated, they made the blood flow into the hole ; they threw in li;e coals (kindled, prob- bly, at the sacred fire of the hearth), grain, cakes, li'uits, a little wine, and some honey. When all this was consumed in the hole, they thrust down the stone or piece of wood upon the ashes while they were still warm." ^ It is easy to see that the object of the cere- mony was to make of this Terminus a sort of sacred representation of the domestic worship. To continue this character for it, they renewed the sacred act every year, by pouring out libations and reciting prayers. The Terminus, once placed in the earth, became in some sort the domestic religion implanted in the soil, to in- dicate that this soil was forever the property of the family. Later, poetry lending its aid, the Terminus was considered as a distinct god. The employment of Termini, or sacred bounds for fields, appears to have been universal among the Indo- ' Siculus Flaccus, edit. Goez, p. 5.